


Management Strategies With Regard to Attempted Homicide

by GoldsweptSilk (NevillesGran)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, Possessiveness, Thralls, Vampires, attempted (re)murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 21:49:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20160631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NevillesGran/pseuds/GoldsweptSilk
Summary: Melanie has another go at...managerial restructuring, with a stake. There are some additional consequences this time.





	Management Strategies With Regard to Attempted Homicide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Listless_Songbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Listless_Songbird/gifts).

> As implied, this 'verse has the VtM-ish mechanic that a human who drinks vampire blood (in small doses) will gain some mild powers and more importantly become very addicted to it and be psychically bound/vulnerable to said vampire.
> 
> When Elias had his little "staff meeting" in circa ep92, he gave everyone (except Basira, who he needed in order to control Daisy) a choice to feed from Jon instead of himself. Martin and Tim switched pretty quickly; Melanie stuck with Elias for a while out of sheer spite, until something much like ep106.
> 
> This is not long after that.

Jon was recording a statement when Melanie sidled into his office. Just because they knew monsters were real, now, didn’t mean they didn’t still have to digitize all the nonsense stories. Melanie held a paper in her hand and communicated through silent gesture that she needed to look for something in the file cabinet behind him. He waved her on, still reading

Working with Elias directly had kind of been a crash course in how not to get your mind read. It never worked, but he was such an asshole that he would condescendingly tell her when she was doing better or worse, and Melanie was almost entire sure he hadn’t lied. So Melanie was very definitely thinking about the file she’s looking for, and how she was trying to be quiet, and how she needed to remember to pick up milk on her way home, and not about the stake tucked into her sleeve, poised to drop into her hand as soon as she changed the angle of her arm. Jon was busy but he was getting more of a grasp on his creepy, fucked-up powers these days, and she didn’t feel like taking chances.

Melanie slipped around him to the file cabinet, opened a drawer more or less at random, slid the stake into her hand and thought about spinning around and shoving it into his back—snatched the thought back, shoved it back down, smothered under “where _ is _ that file?!” 

Jon didn’t seem to notice. 

She closed the drawer, opened another, actually busied herself looking for what she allegedly came for—it should be here; she had an airtight reason. Halfway through reading a name, she spun around— 

Spun all the way around, a completely inefficient way to move to the next file cabinet over—her step was mistimed, the angle wrong, she knew she was just making excuses but it was okay. Jon was still oblivious, taking notes as he read about some bullshit ghost or another. He wasn’t even particularly hungry (she would know.)

Melanie fiddled around in the second cabinet until the statement was nearly done. She needed to _ go _ before it’s over.

She went. Step, stake—

Stop. She caught herself. Just couldn’t quite bring herself to stab down, to even want to.

Her spike of anguished frustration finally drew Jon’s attention, and Melanie felt his fucking vampire mind pressing on hers as he looked over his shoulder at her. (Elias had been, no doubt still was, utterly invisible, but Jon was like someone leaning over her shoulder.) 

He yelped to see the stake. 

“Were you– going to use that?“

“Apparently not,” Melanie spat. She lowered the stake, and thought about just dropping it. It would probably roll under the desk and be a pain to get out.

“Ah....good?”

“No,” she said shortly.

Jon looked away, adjusting the sit of his glasses. “I...could easily feel the same way, in your shoes. I do apologize for– for not being here to stop you from getting involved—“

Melanie groaned over him. “Shut up! Just shut up!” She stomped out of the office. 

“Please don’t try to kill me again?” Jon called after her. “...Again?”

Melanie flipped him off without looking back. 

(To his very minimal credit, he just asked, didn’t _ push _ the way she knew he could have. She could feel his gaze close against her head, and she flipped him off again, even though she was fully around the corner. The pressure receded, though not completely.

It never disappeared completely.

That was why she didn’t regret what she’d tried to do, despite Jon being kind of just as trapped in this as she was and the _ how dare you/how could you _ of blood whispering through her veins. Because one less goddamned vampire in the world could only be better, that’s how.)

<O> 

Melanie tried to kill Jon (for good) at just after lunch. Jon didn’t bring it up again for the rest of the day, even when they accidentally made eye contact in the break room. Even when she let the stake stick pointedly (ha) out of her bag when she packed up for the evening. She needed to go _ out _ for a few hours, before retreating to her cot in the Tunnels for the night. Fortunately there were several good bars nearby, or at least cheap bars.

But instead of out the side door that the Archive staff used to temporarily escape the building, her feet led her up to Elias’s office.

“I don’t work for you anymore,” she growled as she stalked in, and slammed the door behind her. 

Elias raised his eyebrows. “Oh, has something gone wrong with the payroll again? I’ll have to ask Rosie about it tomorrow.”

Melanie sighed, and fingered the stake in her bag. It might not help, but it made _ her _ feel better.

“What do you want.”

“Think of it as a follow-up performance review.” He leaned forward, fingers steepled before him, walking the line between bureaucrat and monster. “Your behavior today was unacceptable. I respected your need to rebel against me, it was almost a fun game, but you _ will not _ be treating Jon with the same murderous intent.”

Melanie’s breath caught in her throat (Ivy Meadows, the blood, the _ rot_.) She bluffed past it. “He didn’t mind. And I didn’t manage it.” She almost managed not to think, _ yet_. “So what’s your problem?”

He sighed, like he was the one long-suffering. “You know, I never really take thralls.”

“What?”

”I’ve never found them particularly worth the effort. They’re a reliable source of blood, of course, and a good resource to throw into battle. And there’s a certain satisfaction to it, I won’t deny. But I have a perfectly stable food source here in the Institute—do you know, it’s been over a decade since any of the staff even got anemia? And some of us prefer to solve our problems with words.” 

He gave a barbed look at her stake, still resting under one hand. Melanie rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to say something sarcastic.

Elias continued over her. “They are, however, definite assets to a newborn vampire, particularly in such...turbulent times. That is why I took the effort to prepare a few of you for Jon, when it was time for him to take his place as my heir. Furthermore, you are all comfortable transitional anchors to both his old life and his new. A bit of familiar responsibility, to give him something to focus on other than the impending apocalypse. 

“You have performed your material duties...satisfactorily, but in this last purpose you have been unrelentingly lacking. Despite my explicit threats and the relief of Jon’s relative leniency, your attitude has remained nothing but confrontational, culminating in today’s little attempt at treason.” He spread his hands. “Frankly, I don’t think Jon needs the additional stress.”

The blood on the windows, the screaming, the way the skin curdled where the _ things’ _ fangs sunk in. They weren’t even memories, just things she knew had happened. The mental images were all her. She didn’t know if he was pulling them to the front of her mind or if she was just remembering them from nightmares.

“And I think your just pissed that I got so close to staking him.”

Elias leaned forward, and _ now _ he was a monster.

"I am, however, going to offer you a choice, since you value that so highly. I can, as discussed, make you witness your father's death, in _ visceral _ detail. What Amherst and his spawn did to his body, before he even managed to die..." His voice curled around the words, around her mind, like a caress. "it's not a pretty picture, Melanie. And you will see it every. Time. You close. Your eyes."

She didn't whimper. She didn't.

"Or, I can make one last effort to instruct you. To make you _ understand _ the world you find yourself in, and your purpose within it. It may chafe a little more against that vaunted 'free will', but at least you'll be able to sleep at night. At least you won't see...that."

Melanie glared through a sheen of tears. Her hand clenched around her stake so tightly that it hurt.

"Well? Which would you rather I show you? Your father?" Elias smiled, and for the first time, there was a flash of fang. "Or your place?"

<O>

There was something wrong with Melanie. Jon had avoided her all afternoon and gone out last night as soon as she left, in the opposite direction, so she could slip back into the tunnels undisturbed. It seemed the best course of action after the...incident. 

He didn't blame her, truly. He didn't want to die—again—but he certainly understood the desire to...get someone out of the way, at least. He would _ really _ like to be free of Elias's machinations.

So he stayed away politely, didn’t Look for her even once, and it was easy for a night because she slept in the tunnels with their natural dampening field. But the moment she woke up, there was something wrong. He could sense it from his office. And when she came through the trapdoor, her mind leapt into his Sight like a live wire, like a raw wound, so painfully unguarded that he shied away. 

Her shields didn't snap back up. He held himself back, against the beat of _ defend, devour, mine _ that had replaced his heart. This was Melanie. She wouldn't want him pressing, particularly after that...awkward thing yesterday. 

She knocked on his door frame at 11:05 and entered with her neck tilted just slightly back (surrender) and her eyes downcast. "Jon? You want to see me?"

Even superficially she looked like she was in pain (wounded, vulnerable)—pale, pinched expression; eyes shadowed like she hadn't slept. Heart beating too fast. 

Psychically, at this range, she was impossible to ignore. A migraine drove burning nails into her brain, except the nails were _ Submit, Obey, Serve your Master, Do your Work, Stop Fighting._

Much faster than if he'd been human, Jon had a hand on her cheek (pulse beneath her chin brushing the base of his palm.) He knew he was baring his fangs. "_Who did this to you._"

The answer sprang to her mind much faster than she could speak it, as her bare psyche cringed from the pressure of his Sight and at the same time leaned into it (_Submit_). Elias in his office, smirking, cruel.

"Unacceptable," Jon spat (**_defend_**, _ devour_, ** _mine._**) 

This time she flinched with her body, too, flashes of memory in sharp relief. The office and worse, the care home, the knowledge of what had happened there (but not the details, not the personal sight of it; this was better. It had to be.)

Jon's rage curled around her, snarling outward. Melanie started to melt at the edges. He tried to rein it in. 

"I'm going to speak to Elias immediately. He can’t— This was completely uncalled for."

She grabbed his hand on her cheek before he could take it away, and tilted her head even further back (the flush in her neck). Her eyes were wide with fear. "You don't need to do that."

"What— Of course I do,” he snapped. He grabbed her hand, started pulling her toward the door. “The whole— One of the many points of this entire venture is that he stops...interfering with you. With any of you."

"Okay." She let herself be towed.

Jon stopped in his tracks. Melanie agreeing with him was just _ wrong._

He _ watched _ her pull together the parts of herself that still wanted to fight. She did it for herself, and in response to the displeasure he couldn't stop from spilling across their bond. His stomach <strike>growled</strike> roiled.

"So you're going to storm into his office and tell him off for breaking your toy?" She met his eyes and he could See that every element of it was true—the resentment, the fear, the need to please, the exhaustion. "I don't want that." Her voice cracked. "Please."

"Melanie..." He gestured helplessly. "You just said 'please.' To me."

"I know," she said miserably.

"...All right."

He turned fully away from the door, and the relieved slump of her shoulders was his reward (_Defend_).

The subtle wash of shame at pushing him (her master) to do something he didn't want was something he steeled himself against reacting to, or at least, held back so she didn't feel his response.

Melanie pulled herself together again, to something like casual. "Do you, ah, need a snack?" Hands in her pockets, she tilted her head to the side again, exposing the sweet carotid artery.

_ Devour_. 

"Pretty much always," he said carefully. He could feel his fangs again. "But not unless you want to."

She shrugged, equally careful. "It might make it...easier."

Her head _ hurt_, Jon could See. She wanted to get back to work, or be polite and acquiescing, or whatever would work to make it stop. She wanted to lose herself in the euphoria of being fed on. 

She wanted it. It wasn't just that he did.

He went and closed the door, came back and brushed a few loose strands of hair from her neck, stroked his thumb over the pulse point. It sped up under his touch, warm and vibrant.

"And do you want, ah..." He mimed biting his other wrist, offering her the blood, the energy, the rush of connection. 

She closed her eyes so he couldn't see the shining anticipation in them, except of course he could. "Pretty much always."

_ Mine. _

"Okay."

<O>

Jon caught Elias on his way to his car. Not by surprise—Jon was getting better at shielding his mind, but he was still Elias's own blood, and when Elias couldn't sense _ that _ about to attack him, he would already be dust. But with more speed and force than expected. He slammed Elias against the side of his car, one wrist pinned above his head and and an arm across his throat.

"You said you would leave my assistants _ alone.”_

"Jon. Nice to see you, too." Elias didn't need to breathe, of course, but his voice box was being crushed. "I don't foresee any particular need—"

"_Do not touch them.”_

Elias gasped. The command hit with concussive force, all the raw power of a fledging and the still barely-tapped potential that was simply Jonathan Sims. 

But Elias had centuries of experience, and Jon was _ his _ blood. Mentally and physically, Elias shoved him away. "Of course. Not unless you, or they, force my hand."

Jon snapped his fangs at him. His eyes were red in the shadows of the streetlight, half-feral with possessive instinct.

Elias bared his neck in surrender.

Jon stopped, confused. 

"Not unless you force my hand," Elias repeated. He plucked the last minute's memory from a very alarmed man across the street and got in his car, and left the bewildered Jon to manage the Institute until morning.

Melanie would be back to her usual obstreperous self within a week. Perhaps even sooner, if Jon worked at undoing to commands driven into her psyche. Sight and memory were Elias's specialty, not brute control. But he rather thought he had finally gotten the point across, of his threat and Jon's deservance of her loyalty.

And Jon had reacted _ magnificently._

Elias had never found thralls all they were cracked up to be. But a strong heir, confident in his own place and power—that was absolutely worth the effort.


End file.
